Isabel María Povea Moreno

Isabel María Povea Moreno (Spain, July 7, 1982) is a Spanish historian who has specialized in social history and mining history of Spanish America, with special emphasis on the history of women in colonial mining.

Education and career Minería y reformismo borbónico en el Perú. Estado, empresa y trabajadores en Huancavelica, 1784-1814 (2014) leftPovea Moreno studied for a bachelor's degree, advanced studies diploma and doctorate in the History of the Americas at the University of Granada. Her doctoral dissertation, Retrato de una decadencia. Régimen laboral y sistema de explotación en Huancavelica, 1784-1814, was directed by Miguel Molina Martínez and she defended her dissertation on July 14, 2011. From 2012 to 2014, Povea Moreno completed a postdoctoral stay at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). From 2015 to 2016, she was a visiting-professor at El Colegio de San Luis. From 2018 to 2021, she was a professor-researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. As of 2021, she is a professor-researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS).

The Mexican Committee of Historical Sciences awarded her in 2017 the prize for the best article in Social History of 2015 for "Coacción y disensión. Protestas frente a los repartimientos mineros en Perú y Nueva España, siglo XVIII" published in the journal Estudios de Historia Novohispana published by the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM. She served as Secretary of the executive board of the Latin American and Iberian Association of Social History (ALIHS) from 2019 until October 2025, and has served as vice president since 7 October 2025, with a term ending in October 2027.

She is a member of the advisory board of the journal Huarte de San Juan. Geography and History (University of Navarra) since 2020, member of the editorial board of the journal Norba. Revista de Historia (University of Extremadura) since 2020, and is a member of the advisory board of the journal Temas Americanistas (University of Seville) since 2021.

In her book, Minería y reformismo borbónico en el Perú. Estado, empresa y trabajadores en Huancavelica, 1784-1814, Povea Moreno delves into the study of the social history of the mercury mines of Huancavelica, the various occupations of the workers and includes the importance of female work in the production of mercury. The great novelty of the book, according to the historian Miguel Molina Martínez, is the "analysis that it dedicates to the role played by women in the work of the mine." In 2015 the book was considered one of the 10 best books of history of Peru published in 2014, and occupying 5th place, based on a survey of 35 Peruvian and foreign historians carried out by the blog El Reportero de la Historia.

In her work on mining in New Spain, from different mines such as Zimapán, San Luis Potosí, or Zacatecas, she first studied mining conflicts related to labor practices; including the different ways in which gambling was carried out in these places. In a second stage, she studied the participation of women in mining in New Spain, expanding her analysis to colonial Spanish America, with emphasis on the historiographic "invisibility" of women and children.

Since July 2015, together with Felipe Castro Gutiérrez, she has organized and coordinated the seminar and blog Sociedad Indiana. Historia social de los mundos indianos which is hosted by the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The seminar has a monthly periodicity and the first session was held on January 29, 2016, with the presentation of Brígida von Mentz. The seminar's blog publishes announcements, essays, book reviews, and bibliographies. The seminar has published two books. The first, Los oficios en Hispanomérica colonial, is an outreach text of collective participation published by the Red Universitaria de Aprendizaje de la UNAM in 2019. The second book, Los oficios en las sociedades indianas, is the product of the colloquium "Los oficios en las sociedades indians" that took place on October 24 and 25, 2018.The book was published in 2020 and the publisher is the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la UNAM. A hemerography or compilation of scientific articles related to indigenous social history is published in the seminar's blog (2015–2022).